In Proximity
November 25-29, 2019 | Gallery 115
Curators: Sarah Hodgson, Mylene Iacobucci, Caroline Stewart, Creanna Hope Wade, Loren Wang & Laura-Anne Zaporzan
In Proximity considers the artistic and ethical implications of audience perception and
spectatorship. The works of Brianna Fitzgerald, Kelsey McGruer, Ryan Stec, Mercedes Ventura, and Justin Wonnacott critically engage with themes of voyeurism, participation, and observation in order to challenge the concept of the ‘detached’ spectator. Here, audiences are forced into a self-reflexive state in which they are encouraged to consider the ethical consequences of their spectatorship.
We urge audiences to ask themselves this: In what ways am I implicated through my role as a spectator?
Curatorial Essay
The role of spectatorship in curation is in the midst of a paradigm shift; artists, researchers and institutions alike are re-examining the creative and cultural consequences of viewership. In Proximity considers the artistic and ethical implications of audience perception and spectatorship in contemporary culture. The works of Brianna Fitzgerald, Kelsey McGruer, Ryan Stec, Mercedes Ventura, and Justin Wonnacott critically engage with themes of voyeurism, participation, and observation to challenge the concept of the ‘detached’ spectator. These works, in interaction, force audiences into a self-reflexive state in which they are encouraged to consider the ethical consequences of their spectatorship.
Brianna Fitzgerald is a media and photography artist who graduated from the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Fitzgerald specializes in time based media, electronic art, performance, and installation. In How to Measure a Gaze (2017), Fitzgerald has created an electronic device which counts the length of time that a viewer has been in front of her photographic portrait. This raises the question of whether the audience is viewing the portrait as a work of art, or through a voyeuristic gaze. The artist is concerned with the positioning of portraits in art galleries and how they are subsequently viewed by audiences. This work alludes to the voyeuristic nature of spectatorship. It makes the viewer hyper-aware of their own spectatorship and makes them question its nature.
Kelsey McGruer is an Ottawa artist and uOttawa BFA alumnus whose interdisciplinary work often challenges conventions of female representation within the art historical canon. Bathing Nude (2017) is comprised of a panoramic image made visible through a slit in a wooden box. The image captures a performance piece in which the artist, who is nude in a bathroom, looks into a mirror then enters a shower. The duration of the performance is made evident by the distortion of the figure’s form. The box’s deceptively plain exterior entices viewers to peer into the slot (reminiscent of a ‘peephole’). In doing so, the viewer becomes an observer to this otherwise intimate and private moment. This work incites feelings of discomfort by pushing viewers to intrusively spectate on a scene that is meant to be private. Similarly to Fitzgerald’s work, Bathing Nude engages with issues of voyeuristic spectatorship and the gaze. Additionally, this work demands audience engagement and participation, causing viewers to become aware of and critically question their own spectatorship.
Mercedes Ventura is a Canadian-Guatemalan interdisciplinary artist based in Ottawa, Ontario whose work explores the ways in which identity is influenced by gender, pop culture, ethnicity, and environment. Thirst Traps (2018) alludes to the commonplace commodification and objectification of bodies (in particular those of womxn) in today’s Western media environment, specifically through social media. Womxn’s bodies are regarded as objects for the pleasure and evaluation of others, particularly of men and boys. This is exemplified by the wide-spread use of the term ‘thirst traps’. This expression is used to objectify and hyper-sexualize images of womxns’ bodies on social media. Ventura’s strategic use of everyday objects recreates and distorts this cultural environment through parody; she creates literal thirst traps that challenge the conventional understanding of this expression. Ventura further develops the project by posting these works on social media. As a result, social media users are confronted by and made to question their own assumptions. Much like Fitzgerald’s and McGruer’s works, Mercedes’ Thirst Traps explores the voyeuristic and demeaning forms of spectatorship imposed on the female form.
Ryan Stec is an interdisciplinary artist, teacher, producer, designer and researcher. His work focuses on themes such as time and space, virtual reality, and the urban environment. Stec’s video work, Dead End Job (2003), depicts semi-abstract psychedelic imagery created using surveillance camera footage and a digital video mixer. Stec obtained this footage from the Arts Court reception desk, where he used to work. Using the digital mixer, Stec transforms this footage of an urban environment into a world of cascading and colliding shapes and colours that are both familiar and psychedelic. This work engages with themes of spectatorship and surveillance in the digital age. It explores the ways in which digital technologies have transformed notions of spectatorship and blurred the lines between what is private and what is public.
Justin Wonnacott is a professor of Photography at the University of Ottawa. He has been a photographer for 40 years and his works are featured in many Canadian art galleries and institutions. “ A staged photograph about a beating I witnessed and could not stop. Kreuzberg Berlin 1990” (1990, printed 2019) is from his series Berlin ca 1990-91, which he created while living in Kreuzberg, Germany. During this time, he witnessed a racially motivated beating: he saw a man being beaten by a gang of men whom he assumes were drunk. Wonnacott was standing far away and could not do anything to help the man. He took photographs and tried to document the event when it happened, but was too distant and nothing could be seen in the images. “A staged photograph” is a recreation of that event. The figures in the photograph are actors hired by Wonnacott to recreate what he had witnessed. He explains that creating the memoir was a way of processing what he had witnessed. With this work, Wonnacott delves into the emotional and moral complexities of witnessing another’s trauma. This work explores the ethical implications of his own spectatorship. Further, this work urges audiences to partake in self-reflection; it pushes audiences to consider the ways in which they are accountable as a witness.
As curators, we believe these works will push audiences to become both aware and critical of their position as spectator. Our goal from the beginning was to facilitate dialogue between artists, curators, and audience members. As such, we are hosting an accompanying series of events that aims to open and transform the traditional gallery space by prompting audiences to engage in discourse surrounding the exhibition. Ultimately, In Proximity encourages audiences to consider the following question: In what ways am I implicated through my role as a spectator? We urge our visitors to consider their viewership through a critical lens.